Consultation launched on simplifying injury-reporting Regulations

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a consultation on proposals to simplify and clarify the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR).

Under the proposals, the duty to report injuries or illness will be removed where the information is “of little use” or better collected through other means.

As a result, those who are self-employed will no longer have to report injuries or illness to themselves, employers will not have to report dangerous occurrences outside of high-risk sectors and the requirement to report most occupational diseases will be removed.

The proposals follow the Löfstedt Review, which was commissioned by the Government to identify opportunities to reduce the burden of health and safety legislation on employers. One of the review’s recommendations was that ambiguity over reporting requirements should be removed.

In April, another set of changes to RIDDOR were introduced, which meant that employers were no longer required to report injuries that kept workers off normal duties for seven days or fewer.

David Charnock, consultation manager at the HSE, said: “We are proposing to simplify the requirements by removing the duty to report in those areas where the information can be better obtained from other sources or where the data isn’t particularly useful to the regulators.

“The proposals do not indicate any change in HSE’s policy or strategic objectives, and we will continue to focus our investigations on those incidents that meet our published selection criteria.”